The Prairie: LITTLE HOUSE HERE

There was once a house, a house right here where I am standing. My mother, father, two sisters, one brother and our precious little runt that I named Wiggles, lived here. We had Sunday picnics in our back yard when the weather was perfect and the lilacs smelled like purple candy. Daddy bought us a rubber swimming pool that we had to pump up with Marvin’s bike pump. It was hard to do. We took turns puffing up the sides. It held no more than six kids at a time so we took turns in and out. As the last few roses died, Daddy did the dis-honors and let the water out to run down the path into the alley and down the sewer.

 

Morning was warmer than usual for early March. Easter was only a week away. Our Emerson radio told us we wouldn’t need sweaters but instead should take our sun parasols out of storage. We would reach about 80 degrees by noon. Suzy, a year younger than I, as soon as she finished her Hershey’s chocolate milk, began begging mother to let us squirt the lawn ourselves. ‘Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘It’s too early. You’ll catch your death of cold.’ Suzy gave mother a nice, soft hug, looked like she was about to cry, and Mother gave in. ‘O.K., but for no more than one hour. I’ll let you know before that to turn off the water and wind the hose.’

 

Daddy took the hose out of the shed after lunch and sat down on the porch to read his paper and check on us. Mother straightened the kitchen and came out to sit with Daddy and watch us when he wasn’t.
A rumble of thunder and a distant flash of lightning and we were finished. Daddy wasted no time telling us to turn off the water and get in the house. Black clouds, the blackest black I ever saw, came from nowhere. Sirens began to screech. We didn’t get too scared because Taneytown set them off once a month so we should know what they mean., take cover. The wind grew stronger. Daddy and mother hurried us towards the house but newspapers were blowing, glass was breaking, flying. Our porch roof lifted up like tissue paper, broke in pieces and blew away. The choo choo loud noise grew louder and louder until I thought my ears would burst.  We huddled against the cement wall next to the wash tubs. The only window in the cellar was in the back door. Five of the six small panes broke, some glass dropping outside but one piece flew at Suzy and cut her arm. Mother pulled out a tea towel that had been soaking in a tub and wrapped it around Suzy’s arm.

 

‘Come here, Wiggles,’ I called. Wiggles didn’t come. ‘Wiggles,’ I shouted again, ‘come out from under the stairs.’ Wiggles didn’t come out. He was gone. Mother told us to hold on to each other and pray together. Everything went dark. The wind from the window was sucking us into the frame.  Daddy squeezed me, Suzy, Ellie and Nick behind the furnace. He and mother laid down flat on the cement floor behind a heavy, filled steamer trunk my grandma brought with her when she came from Rumania.

 

The thunderous roar, the black twirling wind stopped. Debris that had gathered was everywhere. Almost nothing in our house was saved, not next door or next door to that. Fire engines, ambulances could not use the streets and zigzagged any way they could get into Taneytown. They carried in their hands, on their backs, anything that might be needed. I saw our black hose hanging from one of the few trees still rooted to the earth. It looked like a dying snake. Except for Suzy’s cut arm, we were not injured.

 

Mother noticed a white wicker arm chair, that wasn’t ours, sitting in the middle of our yard, as if it were waiting for god to apologize and help us survive, As young as I was I knew it would take a very powerful god to do that and wanted to cuss him for sending the tornado to our town, killing 11 neighbors of ours, ruining our houses, our lives.

 

As I let go of that sacrilegious idea, I heard a familiar yip. Wiggles, his black curly fur filled with little pieces of who knows what, came running to me. He licked my dusty legs and my face. I yelled. I screamed with joy. My family came together. We knelt on the ground, held hands and thanked our lord for saving us. Wiggles wiggled his short black tail, ran in circles around us.

 

We said ‘Amen’, got up and got to work helping ourselves and anyone else we could.